Brand: Bellingham Advanced Medical Imaging

Bellingham Advanced Medical Imaging provides access to convenient, compassionate and comprehensive diagnostic imaging (CT, MRI, ultrasound and X-ray) and interventional radiology in Whatcom County.

The imaging center is a leader in innovation and utilization of state-of-the-art technology in an environment that is modern, comfortable, clean and safe. Its knowledgeable, collaborative team of healthcare professionals is driven by precision and quality, and is dedicated to providing an exceptional experience for every patient, every time.

Each board-certified radiologist has sub-specialized training. This means that all images taken are interpreted by an expert physician who has additional education and certification specifically related the exam performed. The care team works closely with the medical community to ensure confidential, timely results are provided to a patient’s health care team.

Audience Definition

To gain mindshare of the ideal consumer, the audience definition was the foundation of the brand positioning. We started by conducting stakeholder interviews to surface relevant insights and to inform identification needs in the marketplace. We uncovered two primary audiences and their core desires:

• Primary – B2B (Providers): Qualified providers responsible for referring and scheduling patient diagnostic medical imaging services.

  • Core Desire: Anything that makes their jobs easier = accessibility, efficiency, reliability, consistency, path of least resistance.

• Secondary – B2C (Patients): Individuals responsible for their family’s healthcare decisions, as well as their own.

  • Core Desire: To be healthy, and quickly = convenience of location, affordability, positive word-of-mouth, excellent customer service, accessibility.

Start With Why

It became clear that instead of focusing on marketing parity services, our “why” was to empower providers and patients to make their own healthcare choices:

• Why: To give providers and patients an option for imaging services that best support the community. We work on their behalf with purpose, expertise and impactful results. We believe that the needs of our community drive us to succeed.

• How: We are nimble experts. We work harder, in pursuit of outstanding provider and patient experiences. We provide easy access to specialists, advanced technology and value for essential health care services.

• What: We are a full-service medical imaging center. We bring peace of mind to our clients’ health care journey and believe in giving them the option to choose affordable, personalized and quality care.

Brand Positioning & Messaging Matrix

The brand themes needed to be easily understood and embraced both internally and externally, as this differentiating strategy would define and amplify all brand communications. The grounding elements to the brand narrative included:

• Brand Promise: Our expert team and radiologists are committed to a service delivery system which provides a patient-centered, high-value health care choice to the communities we serve.

• Brand Attributes: Responsive, convenient, friendly and approachable, honest and trusted, knowledgeable and expert, patient-centered, value-oriented, community-minded, empowering.

• Aspirational Position: The champion of having a choice for imaging services.

Visual Identity Formulation

After copious rounds of reviewing naming opportunities, the physician leadership team opted to take a more neutral approach and settled on “Bellingham Advanced Medical Imaging.” Conversely, they felt passionate about taking a stance on what they believed to be a “radical” approach to healthcare — rather than always saying no, finding a way to way “yes.” This mantra became the organization’s manifesto and its guiding principle. The manifesto led us toward a pre-tagline of “Empowering Smart Healthcare Choices” and a formal tagline of “Welcome to Yes.”

By this time, we had also made strides toward the identify formulation and refinement. The carousel below includes the final logo mark, color palette, typography, design elements and photography samples.

Business Templates

Before we entered the market, we developed a full stack of business templates to ensure standardization. These items included: business cards, employee badges, letterhead and envelopes, info sheets/flyers, magnets, pop-up banners, postcards, presentation folders and rack cards.

In addition to these templates, as part of the “Welcome to Yes” brand experience it was my goal to omit as many of the operational barriers as I could. I entirely overhauled the provider order/referral forms, re-mapped the phone tree and recorded all new voice overs, designed streamlined patient intake forms, created comprehensive ordering guides for referring providers and more.

Website: High-Fidelity Wireframes

The website was built in parallel to the visual identify formulation and included the core UI/UX experience, design, information architecture and content strategy.

Business Development

Establishing a strong, relationship-oriented provider referral network was critical to the clinic’s long-term success. I heavily researched all of the clinics and providers in the region and compiled a comprehensive list. Of the 95 locations, 31 were “qualified” as having potentially wavering referral alliances and/or we knew were actively seeking an alternative option for care.

Two weeks before the center’s grand opening, we built custom kits for each of the 95 clinics that included introductory information and branded swag. In the culture of “Welcome to Yes,” our clinical team took a personalized approach to forge relationships and delivered each kit by hand. We strategized in advance which clinician would visit which site, to ensure that their areas of expertise had as much overlap as possible. A majority of the site visits were completed within three days, and all visits were completed within one business week.

Fast forward to post-grand opening: We initiated a monthly site-visit rounding schedule which included a set of talking points and new collateral focused education or new technology offerings. These visits were was tracked against a monthly referral volume dashboard that I oversaw. We also began coordinating provider-to-provider meet-and-greets over the lunch hour which allowed for much more direct face-to-face time than a monthly drop by would provide.

Media Plan (Advertising)

With limited funds remaining for the grand opening, we sought high-impact awareness tactics that yielded a high impression reach. The media plan included a mix of social media ads, full-page magazine ads (Bellingham Alive), newspaper ads (Bellingham Herald), and ads in the local business journal publication. The clinic also registered as a Chamber member to become more integrated and present in the broader business community.

In the months following the grand opening, media tactics remained consistent with the addition of radio (Whatcom Talk) and a search engine marketing/lead-gen campaign. Additionally, the clinic looked for unique community sponsorship opportunities, such as sponsoring the Bellingham Bells baseball team.

Open House Celebration

In partnership with the Bellingham Regional Chamber of Commerce, I coordinated an official grand opening and ribbon-cutting event on September 26, 2018.

Outcomes

Bellingham Advanced Medical Imaging opened its doors in June 2018. In the months that followed, the following results were achieved:

• Achieved month 12 patient volume targets for 5% market share in MRI, CT, X-Ray and Ultrasound in four months.

• The five-week grand opening advertising campaign netted 451,308 brand impressions.

• Successful open house celebration had 93 attendees and included referring providers, business leaders and community members.

• Achieved accreditation from the American College of Radiology for the MRI and CT modalities.